Ari Takata-Vasquez, Founder - Viscera Studio

Design with Ari Takata-Vasquez

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Ari Takata-Vasquez is a passionate artist and entrepreneur committed to fostering Oakland’s creative community. She is the founder & creative director of Viscera Studio, a multidisciplinary studio providing creative consulting to startups and businesses with the goal of promoting economic justice.Prior to the studio, she founded of Viscera, a USA-made brand and shop established in 2014, Ari promotes intentional living through ethically sourced products that highlight craftsmanship, creativity, and storytelling.

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"The platform makes it easy for me to collect and organize my inspiration both in a visual way while designing."

- Ari Takata-Vasquez, Founder - Viscera Studio

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Design Process

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Collect: How do you explore new ideas?

I don't think I'm always fully consciously exploring ideas, I think a lot of it happens subconsciously. I'm constantly finding inspiration and often my camera roll is how I log different ideas. It can be a unique plant I come across, or the way a particular font looks on a well designed package. I have these little snippets littering my camera roll, but I don't always have a great way to organize and pull them together. They’re in a big jumble in my brain.. The studio team knows I'm absolutely horrible with file management but do so much better in collage or word map format. I need a big open space to throw down all my ideas so I can start or collect and organize them.

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Design: How do your ideas start to take form?

It'll usually come to me when I spot a problem or something that isn't working as well as it could. It's like a puzzle my brain can't help but solve. In my home, for example, I might have my kitchen tools organized in a way that just won't stay organized and even though it's a minor inconvenience, it'll kind of knock around in my brain as an open tab until I solve it. So I might be wandering a vintage market and find the perfect little set of vases that can hold the spoons, spatulas, in a way that won't only be more efficient but beautiful.

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Share: How do you communicate or express your ideas?

As I mentioned earlier I love a big open space to throw down all my ideas and then sort and organize them into something coherent. I typically find just writing, just visuals, or just sketches really limiting. I usually need them all together to show my inspiration, my thought process behind it, and then my iteration of it that solves the problem at hand. I find it difficult to purely use one medium to express my ideas, especially when I want to provide more context and background.

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Ari Takata-Vasquez

Founder & Creative Director

@ari.viscera

@arimadeart

https://www.viscerastudio.com/

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